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Prisoners -- Holds You Captive

Hollywood Whodunits are always wrapped inside certain genre
trappings. It either becomes an unemotional police procedural or a stripped-down
Dennis Lehane like tale. But, like David Fincher’s “Se7en”, “Zodiac” or Clint
Eastwood’s “Mystic River” there rarely comes out a Hollywood crime/drama, which
haunts in all the best ways – psychologically or philosophically. French
Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s auspicious American debut “Prisoners” (2013)
belongs to that rare kind. It has all the general trajectory of a whodunit
thriller, but takes its time to explore each characters involved. It is a
tragic tale of violence against children, which might grab you, extracting the
expected levels of grief and anger and all the while making it hard to shake it
away.

It is another Thanksgiving Day in a small town, in western
Pennsylvania. The weather is moody and chilly. Keller and Grace Dover (Hugh Jackman and Maria Bello) visit their friends and neighbor, Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy Birch (Viola Davis) along with their teenage son and kid
daughter. The Birch’s have two daughters, both at the same age group as of
Dover’s. The kids Anna Dover and Joy Birch are playing around the neighborhood,
when they come across creepy RV parked in front of a house. The teenagers Eliza
Birch and Ralph Dover takes the kids away from the camper and figures that
someone is watching from inside. In the late afternoon, the teenagers have
crashed in front of TV. The couples are having one of their heart-pouring
conversations.

The kids want to get a whistle from Dover’s house. After
getting the permission from their parents and without the help of their
siblings they have gone outside. Keller, the bearded survivalist, first realizes
the girls’ absence. Soon, panic and fear sets in. After a quick neighborhood
search and recon, Keller gets to know about the RV and he calls the police.
Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a tattooed lone-wolf cop, who never failed
to solve a cast. He is sitting in a diner when he gets a call about the missing
children and the RV. In his pursuit, Loki finds Alex Jones (Paul Dano), who at
first hides inside the rotten RV. However, it soon comes to light that Alex
lacks mental capacity to successfully to do a kidnapping.

Keller incites Loki not to leave Alex. When Alex gets
released (after 48 hours), Keller confronts him in the parking lot in front of
the media. In a hushed tone, he says, “They didn’t cry until I left them.” Alex
goes with his reserved aunt (Melissa Leo), who has raised him. The wounded
Keller becomes a vigilante when he kidnaps Alex. He brings him into his old,
desolated house and intimates his friend, Franklin. On one side Loki is
considering all the possibilities, whereas Keller resorts to brutal torture
methods to extract a confession from Alex. The trauma brings a venomous stress
on the families as the clock is ticking away. What happened to the girls? That
will not be the only question in your mind, when watching this hand-drawn
puzzle.

“Prisoners” is not a “Taken” kind of story, where a rogue
father saves his daughter. The characters etched out by screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski are down-to-earth people. They don’t have enough mental strength to
cope with the tragedy. Although, Keller is the leading man, he is not a hero.
He succumbs to darker inclinations and justifies his torture methods without
confirming whether Alex is guilty or not. When Keller lashes out unimaginable
violence on Alex, the horrified Birch confronts him asking, “Have you lost your
mind?” He replies, “Do you have a better idea?” So, as a viewer we feel
sympathetic to this man and at the same time we can’t approve this man’s wrath.
Aaron, not only interweaves the families’ agonies, he also brings in an
enigmatic police figure, Loki. This slick haired, tattooed investigator
suggests that he also has come from a dark background. The writer alludes that
the police work is Loki’s way of exorcising the demons of his past. The script
also has biblical imagery at every corner. The snakes and mazes are written in
to show the movie’s main theme – rebuking God. The layers of social allegory
are not hard to uncover. I can’t talk about the way the film has ably handled
the child abuse because that would spill some important plot points.

Dennis Villeneuve and Roger Deakins

Dennis Villeneuve’s 2011 drama, “Incendies” is about the
terrible legacy of a sectarian war. It was definitely robbed of its
Best-foreign film Oscar. Now, he makes his Hollywood debut with a star-driven
endeavor, which might force directors to certain changes. But, Villeneuve’s
astute directorial methods take a good leap from the last movie. He cleverly
mends the serial-killer genre tropes without totally relinquishing them. His
deft direction is evident, when he makes the character’s torment to enter into
our bloodstream. Each and every frame conveys the feeling through a menacing
wintry landscape. Veteran cinematographer Roger A. Deakins’ grey and brown palletted
cinematography brings takes a viewer into the setting with a charge of
free-floating fear. The rain never looked so miserable as in “Prisoners.”

The five members of this first-rate cast have previous Oscar
nominations. Hugh Jackman’s Keller gives the most noteworthy performance of all
the members. As a builder, hunter and grief-stricken father he shows more depth
with his characters than he has ever done in his career (including the Oscar
nominated “Les Miserables”). Like Ryan Gosling, Gyllenhaal continues to power
through the darker roles. His performance reminds us of characters from classic
noir films. Maria Bello and Viola Davis heart-breakingly show us how broken
woman deal with emptiness. They are underused but amply convey the overwhelming
despair. The moon-faced Paul Dano’s underplay makes us ask whether he is a
villain or not?

“Prisoners” raises moral questions about vengeance, vigilantism, innocence and
guilt. It resists many of Hollywood’s dogmas. If you have the patience to get
inside this dark, sleety vision, you might feel that this is one of the best
vivid, unsettling and unexpected thrillers of this decade.